Policy change: apply to cuurent situation?

Caroliso

If this sounds familiar it's related to my bereavement post, but a different question.

Our bereavement policy permits time off due to death of a parent-in-law, and death of a life partner, along with the usual other categories.

I am thinking about whether to change the policy to include parents of the life partner. This has come up because of a real life example in our company. As our policy stands this EE is not eligible for bereavement leave.

My question has to do with making policy changes and when to make them effective. In general, if I change a policy even because of a legitimate situation I'm wrestling with, I make it effective going forward and don't apply it to the current situation. I've thought of this as a hard and fast rule, good HR practice.

For the first time I'm considering breaking that rule (if in fact I change the policy, which is not a given), and I just wondered how other folks would approach this. Are there circumstances in which you do change policy and apply it to the current person going through that situation?

ray a

Typically, when we make a policy change we determine the effective date and the changes apply only in those circumstances that occur on or after that date. But, about 3 years ago we discovered a loophole in our bereavement policy. We had just updated it early in that year, but then that summer we had two ee's lose grandchildren. The bereavement policy covered grandparents but not grandchildren. Since we follow the policy strictly with no exceptions, I initially turned down the request suggesting they use personal or vacation time. But, after contacting corporate, we soon amended the policy making it retroactive for these two special circumstances.

Balloonman1

What do you thing the right thing to do is?

What do you have to lose by granting it? How many employees have "parnters"?

Look at it this way.....for the cost of a couple days of bereavement pay you will make an employee feel valued. If you you feel this was something that nobody thought of and has come up for the first time, my thought is do what you think is the right thing.

You make the rules you can make exceptions to them......you know it is the right thing to do so go ahead and do it.


Balloonman

System

You may want to think about just adding a phrase to your current policy that basically says, "exceptions to this policy must be requested of, and approved by, management (or HR). We will review the request for an exception based upon the particular circumstances, the employees performance and attendance record, business demands and other factors deemed appropriate by management." This allows you to consider those situations that don't normally present themselves with enough frequency to justify changing your whole policy just for a few occasional odd circumstances.

LarryC

I am on the side of changing the policy retroactive to including this employee's situation. Since you already recognize the partner in your policy, it shouldn't be much of a reach to include the partner's parents.

Being in HR, the fear that we have when we make a policy change retroactive, is how many other employees are going to take advantage of us. In this case I doubt that this policy change will sprout a rash of deaths.

SMace

I must of missed that day of class. I can't see why you wouldn't include the person that caused you to change the rule. You looked at their situation and thought, "you know this should be covered." Then you tell them thanks for bringing this to our attention. "Everyone else will now be allowed to......."

But, maybe I'm missin' sumthin'.

HRCalico

I understand what you mean and also prefer to give notice when changing policy. However, I (with agreement from management) have been known to push for some retro policies, usually when it benefits the employee. Example - we changed our vacation policy (in the employees' favor - they didn't have to wait as long for increased time) and retroed a few people who had already passed their anniversary that year. My bottom line there was "do the right thing".